Plants using Twitter.Its crazy crazy world !!!!!

I got a mail few months back from a friend asking me to join Twitter. I didn’t know what it was at that time but joined it. Now I know why it is so popular with my friends and also with the people around the Globe. Twitter is another way to expose your self to the world via the web, just like myspace, facebook and many other sites, so if you want to get your name out and expose your uniqueness, then go for it.

Until now I thought twitter was being used by only humans but was shocked to see this piece of news. Researchers at New York University’s interactive telecommunications program have come up with a device that allows plants to tell owners when they need water or if they’ve had too much via the social network blogging service Twitter. Isn’t that cool and weird at the same time. Do we need a device to tell us when to water a plant? But if we question every innovation then I guess there would be no need of researchers.

So how does this whole concept of plants telling people when they are in need of water work? “Obviously plants can’t talk or Twitter directly, so we have to help them along with that,” said Rob Faludi, co-creator of the device called Botanicalls. The device is made of soil-moisture sensors that are connected to a circuit board. They measure the level of moisture, and then communicate the information to a microcontroller. “There are settings in the software that allow you to set what kind of plant you’re using and also adjust for characteristics of the soil, different soil has different qualities,” said Faludi. The device determines whether moisture levels are too low, or too high, and then transmits a wireless signal to Twitter, via the Internet, which lets people send short, 140-character text messages to their network of friends.

The device is totally customizable to suit the language the owner speaks and the type of plants Botanicalls co-creator Kate Hartman said the language used in the Twitter messages can be personalized to suit the owner, or the type of plant. “There’s always a basic “I’m thirsty, could you please water me” message. But they also accelerate in terms of need, so there’s an urgent message: “I’m desperately thirsty, please water me”,” Hartman told Reuters. Due to word of mouth, Hartman’s plant, ‘Pothos,’ has more than 2,300 subscribers on Twitter (http://twitter.com/pothos). Every day followers receive messages updating them on the plant’s soil moisture content, and whether it’s being cared for. “I feel a bit more guilty when I don’t water Pothos, because everybody knows,”laughs Hartman.

To date, Hartman and Faludi have sold nearly 100 of the Botanicalls kits for $99 each. “Actually receiving a message from a plant is just very engaging, and I think kind of unexpected. There’s a magic to it that people really enjoy,” said Faludi. The spirit of Botanicalls is really re-engaging people with nature and getting them to pay attention.”

So if you think your garden is going dry and your gardner is not taking care of the plants well then its time to switch over to Botanicall kits and get yourself an account on twitter 😀 and it is just costs 99$